Creating a Driver Repository (DriverDB) for Use with Microsoft Windows 2008

In this section, you create a folder structure containing Microsoft Windows 2008 device drivers from the Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Server drivers ISO image. This folder structure will be used during scripted OS deployments of Microsoft Windows 2008 (edits to the unattend.xml file will instruct the scripted OS deployment to install these drivers during installation).

Cisco unifies the OS drivers for Cisco UCS C-Series Servers, packaging certified drivers into a unified ISO image based on the firmware level with which they were certified. This document uses Microsoft Windows OS drivers based on Cisco UCS C-Series Servers Firmware Release 1.4.6.

After the ISO image is extracted (for example, using WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip), the drivers are placed into folders based on OS category: Linux, Solaris, Microsoft Windows, or VMware. Only the Microsoft Windows folder is discussed here (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Driver ISO Directory Listing

The next steps involve copying device driver folders from the driver ISO image. The goal is to create a folder structure containing all the Microsoft Windows 2008 device drivers that are required for the Altiris preboot image. You should rename the subfolders so that you can easily identify the vendor, device model, and OS and architecture to which the driver applies. For example, for the Intel ICH10 disk controller, you could use Cisco_Intel_ICH10_W2K8_x64.

The drivers in the ISO are not all in a consistent format. The best approach is to extract the drivers for a specific device into a single folder that includes all required device driver files (.cat, .inf, and .sys). Some drivers are simplified, but others require some manipulation (for example, you may need to extract drivers from an executable installation file or identify the specific driver folder that is required for Microsoft Windows plug-and-play support).

Note: If a small ISO file is included in the driver directory, this ISO contains the exact drivers needed for this exercise.

All the drivers required are documented in the matrices in Tables 1 through 5. They are divided into five categories: chip sets, disk controllers, network adapters, SAN host bus adapters (HBAs), and converged network adapters (CNAs). Tables 1 through 5 show the matrices and also include any additional instructions required for extracting the drivers. Figure 2 provides an example of driver extraction using the WinRAR right-click context menu.

Table 1. Chip Set Drivers

Chip Sets

Driver Path

Special Instructions

Cisco UCS C22

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C22\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C24

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C24\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C200

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C200\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C210

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C210\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C220

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C220\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C240

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C240\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C250

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C250\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C260

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C260\W2K8\All

None

Cisco UCS C460

\Windows\ChipSet\Intel\C460\W2K8\All

None

Table 2. Disk Controller Drivers

Disk Controllers

Driver Path

Special Instructions

Intel ICH10R

\Windows\Storage\Intel\ICH10R\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of ICH10R_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

Intel C600

\Windows\Storage\Intel\C600\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of C600_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI 1064E

\Windows\Storage\LSI\106xE\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 106xE_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI 1068E

\Windows\Storage\LSI\106xE\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 106xE_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI 9260-4i

\Windows\Storage\LSI\92xx\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 92xx_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI 9260-8i

\Windows\Storage\LSI\92xx\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 92xx_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI 9261-8i

\Windows\Storage\LSI\92xx\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 92xx_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI 9280-4i4e

\Windows\Storage\LSI\92xx\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 92xx_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI SAS3081E-R

\Windows\Storage\LSI\3081E-R\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 3081E-R_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI SAS 2008-8i

\Windows\Storage\LSI\2008M\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 2008M_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI SAS 8708EM2

\Windows\Storage\LSI\8708EM2\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 8708EM2_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

LSI 9201 Mass Storage

\Windows\Storage\LSI\9201\W2K8\x64

Extract and use the contents of 9201_W2K8_x64.iso. Extract with WinZip, WinRAR, or 7-Zip.

• Add the DriverDB folder (created in the previous section) that contains all the required Cisco drivers needed during scripted OS deployment of Microsoft Windows 2008

• Make the modifications necessary to the scripted OS Deployment unattend.xml file so that the drivers in the DriversDB folder are used during the device discovery phase of Microsoft Windows installation

1. To create an OS repository, open the Altiris Deployment console, click File, and choose New > Job.

2. You will see a new job appear in the Jobs pane (in the lower-left corner). Provide a user-friendly name (Windows-test in this example).

3. Select the new job and then click Add in the Jobs pane and choose Scripted OS Install.

5. On the following screen, from the "Select the OS version" drop-down menu, choose Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64. Choose English for the OS Language and specify the newly modified WinPE Image for the preboot environment.

Note: Note: Do not use the recommended path structure x:\sources. Instead browse to the Setup.exe file in the root of the source media.

c. Click OK. The files will begin to be copied.

8. When copying is complete, click Next.

9. On the Partition and Format Disk screen, make a selection according to your environment (in the example here, a separate job is used to clean and partition the local disks before OS deployment). Then click Next.

10. Browse to the unattend.xml file (or to the default); then click Finish.

11. At this point, you will see the new OS source directory in C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\Deploy\WinOSxxx (WinOS010 in this example).

1. Navigate to the sources\sources\$OEM$ folder of your new OS source directory (you will see a $$ directory, but you may or may not see a $1 directory).

2. In the $OEM$ folder, create a new folder called $1 (if it does not already exist), and inside the $1 folder create a new folder called DriverDB. The path in this example is C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\Deploy\WinOS010\sources\sources\$OEM$\$1\DriverDB\.

Note: Any folders inside the $1 folder are copied to %SYSTEMROOT% on the target drive of the OS being deployed (C:\ in this example).

3. Populate the new DriverDB directory with all the subfolders created earlier in the section "Creating a Driver Repository (DriverDB) for Use with Microsoft Windows 2008."

4. Now that the DriverDB folder is populated, you need to modify the unattend.xml file, adding some syntax to direct the Microsoft Windows installer to install drivers from this directory during the scripted installation process. Browse to the unattend.xml file that was specified in the job and open it in a text editor. The following screen image shows the section of code that needs to be added to the unattend.xml file.

Note: The Microsoft Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) contains a utility called Microsoft Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) that can also be used to edit and validate the unattend.xml using the catalog in the Microsoft Windows installation media. This tool verifies that the options entered are valid for the specific media you are using for the installation.

Unattend.xml File for Microsoft Windows 2008

The working unattend.xml file used in the testing for this document is shown here.